Bill Stems U.s. Role As World Policeman

Gop Wants Limits On President, U.n.

February 17, 1995|By DAVID HESS Knight-Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON — House Republicans Thursday pushed through their go-it-alone vision of how America should deal with an unruly world, passing a foreign-policy bill that President Clinton's chief advisers have urged him to veto.

On a largely party-line vote, the GOP majority passed, 241-181, and sent to the Senate a bill that would limit a president's authority to act in concert with the United Nations in peacekeeping operations.

The final count was 41 votes short of the number needed to override a veto, assuming the same number of members voted. Eighteen Democrats, mostly Southerners, joined 223 Republicans to vote for it; four Republicans joined 176 Democrats and one independent to oppose it.

As an expression of policy, the bill will have no immediate impact on current peacekeeping operations.

But it symbolizes the GOP's disenchantment with the United States' blurry role in a post-Cold War world, particularly the increasing frequency of the nation's collaboration with the United Nations to contain regional conflicts.

The president and his advisers have complained that the bill would handcuff him in trying to cooperate with other nations to protect U.S. interests.

But Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., chairman of the International Relations Committee, insisted that it merely forces the president ``to think things through before committing the U.S. to major U.N. peacekeeping operations (and) requires prior consultation with Congress that has been woefully lacking.''

The president, he said, could get around some of the major constraints the bill would impose on his authority.

``He would simply have to certify to us that important national security interests were involved,'' Gilman said, ``and get our permission before spending defense dollars for such purposes.''

Congressional opponents, including a handful of Republicans, argued that the GOP plan would hamper the president's ability - and flexibility - to deal promptly and effectively, in alliance with other nations, with brushfire conflicts that could spread and endanger American interests.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., said the international effort to stop Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf crisis would have been blocked under the terms of the GOP bill, ``leaving the world's oil supply at the mercy of Saddam.''

``It would cripple if not destroy financing for U.N. peacekeeping operations,'' said Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, a former Foreign Service officer, ``having the effect of requiring the U.S. either to adopt an isolationist posture or bear a unilateral burden for maintaining international peace and security.''

Republican leaders argued that the bill is a direct response to voters who think the United States is ceding too much sovereignty and treasure to U.N. expeditions.

(``This bill,'' said Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, ``is a course correction, a statement that, yes, we've heard the voices of the American people who want us to have a strong, independent and able defense - reflecting, first and foremost, our national interests and only then supporting peace worldwide. ) One hotly debated provision in the bill would require that the United States deduct from its annual U.N. peacekeeping dues any costs the Pentagon had incurred in global peacekeeping missions.

``We're essentially paying double for each security operation,'' Gilman complained. ``First we pay from our own defense budget and then we get assessed from the U.N. for peacekeeping operations.''

(But Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the senior Democrat on the International Relations panel, contended that other nations would follow America's lead and bankrupt U.N. peacekeeping efforts.)

HOW THEY VOTED

The House passed, 241-181, a bill that would limit a president's authority to act in concert with the United Nations in peacekeeping operations.